Recently Claudia and I visited some OIBM clients in a nearby village.Every client we met greeted us with a proud smile - proud of thebusiness that OIBM had helped them to setup. The first person we met wasa man who made buckets and watering cans out of sheet metal.

He explained to us how his loan had enabled him to buy more material, and how he soon had so much business that he needed to hire two moreemployees to keep up with demand. We also visited a very young womannamed G.H. Ephraim who had started a very impressive business afterseeing her neighbor successfully do something similar.

OIBM had loaned her money to take her business to the next level, which she certainly was doing. The sign explained explained that her shop built and sold roofing, sofa sets, armchairs and more. She had at least 3 men working for her, and she seemed to efficiently manage it all even with her baby daughter strapped to her back no matter what she was doing. She called it a furniture shop, but I noticed she also had a stand full of relatively expensive bicycle parts for sale. Clearly GH is a serious business woman who knows how to put capital to work.

We spent the afternoon walking through the village hearing all sorts ofsimilar stories. And they are great stories - stories that resonate withthe American values of hard work and individual success. Indeed wheneverwe met someone, we asked her (they were mostly women) what she had hopedto achieve by getting a loan from OIBM. The answers were great andmostly similar - to grow my business, to send my children to school.However, towards the end of the day we met a woman who imposed a radicalshift on my perspective. She ran a five foot by 3 foot mud and cardboardshop that sold soap and other necessities. When we asked her about hergoals, she said something that we hadn't yet heard - "to improve thenutrition of my family". Unique, but again this fit comfortably in mycultural lens, I could almost hear the American mothers saying - "We eattoo much McDonald's, no more frozen pizzas, I am going to buy more freshfruits and vegetables from the farmers market." When I asked her if shehad achieved her goals she said yes and explained "we are now able toeat every day". In an instant my lens was shattered and my perspectivetumbled down from its naive perch. A nutritious diet meant eating. Period. Here is a picture of her with her healthy child.

Later we joined the women for a group meeting under a large acacia tree.They greeted us with songs and dances. We went on to discuss thebenefits of saving money, but this time I didn't look through my lens ofretirement - we were talking about saving for next week.